Bad Arolsen, Germany - Tensions Rise In Long Feud Over Access To Nazi Archives

Bad Arolsen, Germany - Boxed away in a former Nazi SS barracks in this central German town is the core of one of the largest collections of historical documents from World War II. All told, the archive contains 50 million records that list the names of 17.5 million people, including concentration camp prisoners, forced laborers and other victims of the Third Reich.
For 60 years, the International Committee of the Red Cross has used the documents to trace the missing and the dead, especially those of the Holocaust. But the archive has remained off-limits to historians and the public, fueling an increasingly bitter dispute among Holocaust researchers, Jewish groups and the 11 nations that oversee the collection.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and diplomats from the United States, France and the Netherlands are pressing to open the archive to researchers and make digital copies of the collection available for inspection outside Germany. Possessiveness and a refusal to change with the times have kept the records closed, some critics contend.

Some German officials and other people argue that disclosing intimate details about the fates of concentration camp inmates and slave laborers would violate their right to privacy.

The dispute has percolated for nearly a decade. Unless a settlement is reached within a few weeks, a political brawl could break out next month in Luxembourg at the annual meeting of the commission that oversees the International Tracing Service, as the archive is formally known. German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries is to meet in Washington on today about the issue with the director of the Holocaust museum, Sara Bloomfield.

The International Tracing Service provides a unique window into the Nazis' obsession with documenting all facets of their rule, including lice inspection reports from concentration camps and records of insurance policies that German firms were required to maintain when they used conscripted workers. The bulk of the collection is German papers seized by Allied forces; it also includes meticulous Allied records on efforts to settle refugees after the war.

Germany and Italy have resisted proposals for opening the archives, including a plan to share digital copies of the records with each of the 11 nations. German diplomats said they worry their government could be sued if the privacy rights of individuals named in the documents were not protected.